1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a telescopic support device for supporting storage bins, and in particular for supporting storage bins for storing mailpieces taken from the sorting outlets of a postal sorting machine. Such mailpieces can be letters or other flat objects or “flats” of small or of large format.
2. Discussion of the Background Art
In postal sorting machines, the sorting outlets are provided with storage members that can be referred to as “stackers” in which sorted mailpieces are stored in stacks and on edge. The mailpieces are then taken manually by an operator from a sorting outlet stacker and transferred in their stacking order to a corresponding storage bin.
In general, a postal sorting machine comprises a feed inlet into which the mailpieces are loaded in stacks, an unstacker for putting the mailpieces in series and on edge, an automatic recipient address reader device operating by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and a conveying and sorting device that directs each mailpiece whose delivery address is recognized automatically to a particular sorting outlet corresponding to that delivery address. In each sorting outlet, the mailpieces are thus grouped together in a first sorting pass. For the second sorting pass, the mailpieces grouped together in each sorting outlet must be fed back into the inlet of the sorting machine (or of another sorting machine) in a certain order for the second pass of the sorting process. For performing such transfer handling, mailpiece storage bins are used as described in Patent Document US-2007/0056885.
The mailpiece sorting machine described in the above document is shown diagrammatically in FIG. 1. On respective ones of two superposed rows, that sorting machine 1 has upper sorting outlet stackers 2 in which mailpieces 4 are stored, and lower sorting outlet stackers 3 in which mailpieces 5 are stored. As can be seen in FIG. 1, the stackers 2 and 3 are offset vertically so as to clear a space for access to the stackers 3 of the lower level in order to facilitate handling the mailpieces 5 in those stackers 3.
As can be seen in FIG. 1, below each lower-level stacker 3 two mailpiece storage bins 7 and 8 are placed that are mounted on a telescopic support device 6 suitable for being deployed horizontally in such a manner as to make the two bins accessible (in the manner of a drawer) for the purposes of filling them with mailpieces and of moving them towards a bin conveyor (not shown). The bin 7 that is further forward in the drawer-like arrangement serves to be filled with the mailpieces 5 from the lower-level stacker 3 while the bin 8 that is further backward in the drawer serves to receive the mailpieces 4 from the upper-level stacker 2.
As shown in FIG. 1, the bin support device 6 is thus deployable in a horizontal plane between a retracted first position (shown in uninterrupted lines) in which it is retracted into the sorting machine and a deployed second position (shown in dashed lines) in which it is deployed out of the sorting machine.
Such a telescopic bin support suffers from the drawback of taking up a large amount of floor space when in its deployed position. In addition, that known arrangement suffers from the drawback of obliging the operator to make a movement through a very large amplitude, which is therefore very tiring, between the stackers 2 on the upper level and the storage bins that are almost at floor level. That arrangement is therefore not satisfactory as an ergonomic workstation for certain people.